Purna Virji @punavirji heads search marketing for an e-commerce company. Why do we love YouTube? She plays a video of a news segment where a news guy is seeing a Texas rat snake and gets scared and jumps away. Everyone laughs, I scream (out loud…). There’s a myth that YouTube is a branding tool. Not […]

Five years ago I graduated from Notre Dame and started my first “real” job. About four years ago, it was clear to me that the corporate world was not everything I’d dreamed it would be. I simply was not cut out for cubicle life.

Since I started off as a bootstrapper myself, I learned a lot about video marketing from trial and error. Today, I’m going to share my lessons of video marketing, community and tips on how to make great videos for marketing when you don’t have a giant budget.

Internet marketing conferences are an exciting resource for those in the SEO and SMM community, offering the most up-to-date and cutting-edge info from experts finding great success marketing online, as well as popular search engine and social media platform employees themselves. You may not have been able to attend all the Internet marketing conferences you wanted to this year, but we reported on many. We’ve categorized the most popular sessions and compiled the liveblog coverage highlights to report all week. Today’s tracks bring you strategic and tactical recommendations for social media marketing and local search and services.

Jeff Harmon starts us off. 40% of all media consumption is online. He created a YouTube campaign to sell a tongue cleaner.

They did A/B testing on the landing page and found 19% of people who watched the video ended up on their website. He used YouTube Promoted Videos and wanted to at least break even. When they started to break even, he turned it up and then they sold 10 million units in a week. One YouTube power user did a review on Orabrush. The NY Times did a feature on Orabrush around the same time. The YouTube power user sent twice as much traffic to their site as NY Times.

Some of you might be sick of hearing about the viral video “Bed Intruder Song,” but the other day, I happened to stumble upon Antoine Dodson’s YouTube channel and realized: This guy is kicking butt on capitalizing on his newfound 15 minutes.

It made me stop to think about the potential power of viral videos. YouTube has done its fair share of catapulting people into the limelight. And while I think the formula for staying power is talent, drive and business savvy, there’s a huge potential to monetize your 15 minutes and take it from the Web into other platforms. Let’s take a look at some of the things Antoine did to expand upon his newfound fame.

Crisis communications has evolved with the invention of social media, how (and how quickly) companies must respond in the event of a crisis is complex and swift. With real-time updates becoming part of the norm in the SERPs, a company in crisis should always be part of the current conversation.

Staring at the fish tank at my chiropractor’s office this week, I realized that BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the resulting sour of public opinion is an opportunity to look at social media and crisis communication.

Last week Susan asked that people get on the Robert bandwagon for So You Think You Can Dance. Yes, Robert had another stellar performance on this week’s show, but one friend had bigger aspirations — hopes of seeing BCI’s Robert Esparza getting jiggy wit’ it. And who are we to disappoint? I bring you Robert and Gary Luke’s disco boogie!

That’s not the only gift we’ll give the Internet marketing community this month. On July 2 we’ll announce the winners of the Small Biz Discovery Contest. Make your choice for the grand prize winner known by voting for your favorite article in the SEO and social media categories. We adjusted the voting process this week, which means voting is open until the end of June. And when you vote, you can enter a drawing to win a seat in our SEOToolSet Training. Make someone’s day and learn along the way.

It’s recap time again. Hold on to your white/gray/black hats and take a ride with me.

So first, I’ve gotta plug our Small Biz Discovery Contest because we’re giving away some fantastic prizes, including a pass to Search Engine Strategies San Francisco. To play, write an article that speaks to the community of small business owners, giving them one powerful tactic for SEO, PPC or SMM that would improve their online presence. Read all the deets in yesterday’s blog post.

You also may have noticed that this week Bruce Clay, Inc.’s newest writer made her debut on the blog. Jessica Lee reminded us of the marketing benefits of getting cozy with our communities offline. There’s nothing like that in-personal touch. (Yeah, I just made up that phrase. Nice, right?)

Oh happy, glorious, liberating Friday. We’re so glad you’ve come back! What’s in store for the recap today? We must read on to find out!

The biggest, brightest full moon of the year happens tonight. Tonight’s full moon also happens to be the first of the year, an event known as the wolf moon. If you’ve got clear skies, celebrate by snatching your three wolf moon shirt from the closet and check out this celestial beauty.

Before voting closes tonight, take a minute to vote for your favorite finalists of the SEMMY Awards. The SEMMYS honors the best Internet marketing blog posts of the year as chosen by the community. Congrats to all the finalists on this distinction! If you’re not really one to pick favorites, you’ll still enjoy the SEMMYS for pulling together and categorizing a ton of incredible posts from the last year.

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